Introduction
GXS Bank is a Singapore digibank serving over 1 million customers, with product offerings across savings, cards, and lending. The bank's lending product is GXS FlexiLoan, which allows users to borrow cash quickly within minutes and save on interest when they repay early.
GXS FlexiLoan supports 2 loan repayment structures: Instalment Loans and 0% Balance Transfers, each with distinct repayment behaviours, fees, and cost implications. However, the existing Borrow experience made it difficult for customers to compare these options meaningfully. Key information was fragmented, comparisons required repeated effort, and financial concepts such as Balance Transfer were not clearly understood at the moment of decision.
As a result, users often defaulted to 'Instalment Loan' option, dropped off during journey, or sough clarification through Customer Support. To address this, I led the redesign of both the Calculator (pre-onboarding) and Borrow journey (post-onboarding), shifting the experience from a choice-first, fragmented flow into a comparison-led, guided experience.
Problems
Based on the research and customer feedback gathered from our Research team, alongside my own evaluative mapping of the end-to-end journey, I have clustered the issues into three key areas:
1
Lack of side-by-side comparison → Users had to choose between Instalment Loan (IL) and Balance Transfer (BT) before seeing a complete picture of repayment schedule, total repayment, fees, and interest rate. Cost information was fragmented across screens, with no single view answering:
“How much will I pay overall, and what am I trading off between these options?”
To compare repayment options, users needed to restart the flow and re-enter amount and tenure twice, making resulting in a inconvenient experience that frustrates users. As a result, users often defaulted to the familiar Instalment Loan, rather than the most suitable option.
2
Lack of understanding about 'Balance Transfer' Repayment Option → Users were defaulted to 'Instalment Loan' repayment option instead of Balance Transfer option, and they lacked understanding of 'Balance Transfer'. This discouraged users from choosing this option, even when it could
Balance Transfer option posed an additional challenge: Many users did not understand how it worked or when it was beneficial. Because the choice was presented upfront and without context, users tended to: avoid Balance Transfer altogether and default to Instalment Loans, even when Balance Transfer could result in lower total cost. This behaviour suggested that users weren’t rejecting Balance Transfer — they simply didn’t understand it at the right moment.
3
Calculator flow only simulated 'Instalment Loan' option → this makes Balance Transfer invisible in a neutral comparison context. Users could not easily adjust amount or tenure and see which loan repayment options was available for them, limiting their ability to explore scenarios and build confidence before committing.
4
Constraints surfaced too late → Each repayment method came with different eligibility rules (amount limits and tenures), but these were not surfaced proactively. Users only encountered constraints through blocking validation errors late in the flow. For cautious borrowers, this made the experience feel rigid and punitive rather than transparent and supportive.
↑ Loan repayment option constraints
Success metrics
The goal of the redesign was to improve decision clarity and borrowing confidence at the point of loan selection:
Increase in FlexiLoan drawdown rate
The total number of successful drawdowns for both FlexiLoan and Balance Transfer products
Indicates effectiveness of redesign through A/B testing (total successful drawdowns in control vs. experiment group)
Drop-off rate within the Borrow flow
Funnel analysis tracking abandoment between key steps (borrow screen -> comparison -> confirmation -> successful drawdown)
Secondary success metrics
Reduced volume of loan-related customer support contact rate (related to repayment structure, fees, and eligibility)
Increased adoption of 'Balance Transfer' repayment
Together, these metrics will ensure we improved not just the completion rates, but the quality of borrowing decisions.
Opportunity
How might we help users easily compare different repayment structures, so they can confidently choose the option that best fits their financial situation without extra effort or repeated flows?
💡 Scope of the project
To keep the redesign focused and shippable within the timeline, the scope was intentionally centered on the decision‑making moments in the borrowing journey. This means focusing on the loan calculator and borrow/drawdown flow, ensuring users could easily compare repayment options, test different scenarios, and understand costs and eligibility at the moment they needed to make a decision.
Competitor research
Before exploring solutions, I first reviewed how other neobank approach loan calculators and borrowing decisions. Across these references, a few consistent patterns emerged: most bank apps followed this simplified flow:
Selection of Loan Amount
Restricted tenure selection based on selected Loan Amount
Display of Final Loan Details
The exception was Trust Bank where they had more than one repayment option:
Select Loan Repayment Type
Select Loan Amount
Select Repayment Tenure
Display of Final Loan Details
↑ Loan calculator screen examples
Design goals
To guide the redesign, I aligned on three core principles focused on improving decision quality, not just flow completion:
Enable meaningful comparison and cost transparency → allow users to compare repayment methods side‑by‑side with clear visibility into total cost, fees, and trade‑offs, not just monthly repayment.
Align the flow to real borrowing mental models → structure the journey around how users think about borrowing (amount → tenure → repayment method) to support exploration before commitment.
Explain complex concepts in context and surface eligibility limits → This is so users feel guided toward viable options rather than blocked late in the flow.
Ideation for Borrow / Calculator Flow
Designing the Borrow and Calculator flow meant having to balance clarity, comparison, and cognitive load in a high-importance financial decision. Guided by three design goals above, my goal was to focus to evaluate and choose the the guided approach that felt natural to how users think about borrowing, while supporting informed comparison without overwhelming them.
I explored three iterations of the Borrow flow. Option 1, a guided flow starting with the loan amount and tenure to align with how users think about borrowing; Option 2, a comparison-led approach that surfaced repayment trade-offs side-by-side; and Option 3, which combined both through progressive disclosure, guiding users step-by-step before presenting comparison at the moment of decision. Each iteration explored which decisions should be made and how much information to reveal, helping converge a flow that balanced clarity, comparison, and cognitive load.
Flow options explored
During the ideation stage, I weighed the trade-offs across three flow directions, each testing a different assumption about decision timing, comparison clarity, and cognitive load in a borrowing context.
Option 1: Guided flow starting with amount and tenure
Focused on aligning the journey to how users' mental model when they borrow loan. By asking users how much they needed and how long they wanted to repay before introducing loan repayment type, the flow felt more natural and less intimidating. It reduced the tendency to default to Instalment Loans too early. That said, repayment methods were still presented as a simple choice, and users didn’t yet have enough visibility into total cost to make a confident comparison.
↑ Option 1 (Guided flow starting with amount and tenure)
Option 2: Single-screen side-by-side comparison
This exploration pushed hard on transparency and ease of comparison. After users set amount, tenure, and repayment date , both Instalment Loan and Balance Transfer were presented together with detailed breakdowns in a single view.
While Option 1 asked questions that was similar to the user's mental model when borrowing, it still required users to infer trade-offs across steps. Option 2 made comparing and showcasing repayment option trade-offs more explicit.
To test how comparison should be presented, I explored two layout variants:
Horizontal comparison (placing options side-by-side surfaced differences immediately but relied on swiping and short‑term memory, increasing cognitive load on smaller screens. Whereas, vertical comparison (stacking options vertically), reduced visual clutter and allowed each repayment option to be scanned more comfortably.
While both variants improved clarity over Option 1, it also revealed a new issue, which was presenting all information into a single, late stage decision point increased cognitive load at the moment users were being asked to commit.
↑ Option 2 (Single-screen side-by-side comparison)
↑ Option 3 (Progressive disclosure with comparison)
What solution did we land on?
The final solution restructured the Borrow and Calculator experience into a progressive, decision-led flow. Users first set the amount and tenure, then compare repayment options side-by-side at point of choice, revealing costs, and trade offs only when relevant.
To make this comparison easier to reason about, each repayment option was supported with clear contextual cues:
Tag labels that summarised intent (e.g. Instalment Loan - better for long-term planning, Balance Transfer - lowest interest)
Plain-language explanation to clearly inform users how each repayment option works:
Instalment Loan repays loan in equal monthly amounts
Balance Transfer keeps monthly payments low, with a lump-sum repayment at the end.
What were the key design decisions?
Progressive disclosure over single‑screen comparison
Information was revealed in stages to reduce cognitive load and support reasoning at the moment of decision.
Comparison framed around outcomes, not products
Instalment Loan and Balance Transfer were positioned as different repayment behaviours, supported by tags and plain‑language descriptions.
Total cost surfaced alongside monthly repayment
Users could reason about affordability beyond just monthly instalments.
Eligibility reflected in context
Constraints and unavailable options appeared as users adjusted inputs, guiding them toward viable choices instead of blocking them late.